EP REVIEW: Chaos As A New World – Dikasterion
DIKASTERION may have only been active for just over five years, but the band have already created some incredibly impressive music. Although they adopt a far harsher, primal kind of black metal to the vast majority of acts that are coming out of Belgium, whose music often tends to be tinted with experimental touches, this preponderance for looking to the genre’s embryonic bands for influence has done a lot to set the four-piece apart from many of their peers, and has served them well so far on their first two demos and their 2019 EP Stavelot 1597/Rome 897. The band’s latest EP, Chaos As A New World, shows them finally branching out and becoming far more confident as songwriters, standing as arguably their best and most ambitious material to date.
After the ominous and chaotic Intro sets the scene for what’s to come, the album’s first proper track Perdition’s Call bursts into life, with muscular guitar work, solid drums and arid vocals all setting an incredibly lean tone musically. This is energetic, imaginative melodic black metal with a harsher production that helps to make things sound a lot darker, complementing the sound really well and starting proceedings on a powerful and varied note. New World Disorder, by contrast, takes a rabid approach, with speed-driven, primal hooks and frenetic drumming serving as an impenetrable backdrop to the shrill vocals, which carve through the density of the music and add an acerbic counterpoint. Compared with the dancing riffs of the last song, this is far more savage, but still possesses that tightness that prevents the music from lurching into outright cacophony, being monstrous yet extremely focused.
Armies Of The Night provides a relatively short, sharp shock of a song that blends the styles of the preceding two tracks, with vitriolic rhythms and razor precision within the drums and leads injecting lots of punchy moments into the mix. The vocals, as always, add a sinister edge, taking on a harsher, barked delivery as opposed to the hellish howls of earlier offerings, matching the coarse nature and demented fills perfectly. Across The Line has an epic sound, built upon thunderous basslines, steadier tempos and thicker guitars which all create a cavernous and measured sound, feeling grandiose in comparison to the record’s first half, which felt decidedly more caustic. The venom and aggression is still present in the vocals and the more grating guitar passages, but on the whole this is a bombastic change of pace that pays off massively.
This is continued to some extent on the following track Rites Of Conviction, which embraces the sort of soaring guitar work that made Perdition’s Call so memorable, alongside a weighty, rhythmic backbone. It also incorporates blistering passages and searing, acidic snarls that transform this into a visceral take on the last song’s formula, being much closer to classic black metal than earlier tracks. Death’s Serenade is another fantastic change of pace that pushes into the realms of folk metal, with light, acoustic guitar work, sonorous clean vocals and a majestic, bouncing quality that makes it stand out from the pack for all the right reasons. Unlike a lot of black metal that adds folk elements into the mix, everything is well balanced, with the acoustic guitars and huge keyboards complementing the black metal, and the distorted guitars and harsh vocal touches adding depth to an already layered and adventurous sound, bringing this record to a close on arguably one of its best songs.
For an EP that, on the surface, appears to lean quite prominently into a classic, melodic black metal sound, there’s a lot going on musically here. From the aforementioned melodic flourishes to the proto-folk metal of the record’s closer, with hints of the confident hard rock and punk inspired sounds of early VENOM and BATHORY peppered generously throughout, this is an EP that draws heavily not only from black metal’s second wave, but also the genre’s pioneers, without sounding like a cheap imitation of any of these components. It would be great to see DIKASTERION expand on a lot of the ideas and styles that are present on this record in greater length on a full-length album, especially the inclusion of folk influences, as this really adds a new dimension to the music on offer. In its own right, Chaos As A New World is a great piece of music, easily the best material the band has done to date, and it shows a lot of promise for their future.
Rating: 8/10
Chaos As A New World is out now via Amor Fati Productions.
Follow DIKASTERION on Bandcamp.